The appearance of Electronic Business (e-Business) is a developmental mark of the information society and information processing technology. All e-Business activities can be summed up as the switching of trade information between a user and a service provider (such as store), i.e., trade information switching between a user terminal and a service terminal. For example, a user accesses a store Web site for purchasing commodities through the Internet by sending purchase information to a service provider, and the service provider sends back acknowledgement information. In practice, there are large varieties of communications equipment, communications media and communications protocols that can be used for information switching. Taking communications media as an example, there are Internet, telephone, facsimile, handset, cable TV and terminal equipment based on WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), etc., and there will be more in the future.
For information switching processing, the earliest scheme is a mainframe/terminal mode; (i.e., a user operates a mainframe directly through a terminal). This mode is simpler in architecture and faster in response speed, but cannot work collaboratively. Along with development of PCs and LANs, a Client/Server mode appeared. FIG. 1 shows that a client terminal includes service logic and display logic, and service terminals are implemented by a shared database, in general. This scheme begins to consider the separation of a user terminal with a database, but their connection is still close.
In order to reduce the complexity of a user terminal, at present, a more general mode is a three-tiered architecture with the Internet in the middle, as shown in FIG. 2. The main feature of the mode is the separation of display logic and service logic. Many computer companies deploy this mode, such as IBM e-Business, Microsoft Window digital nerves system, etc. The relationship between an access subsystem and a service application subsystem is a client/service relationship, and the communications protocol between them is the internal unique protocol of the service terminal. In order to adapt the system for different user terminal equipment and protocols, different access subsystems are used, as shown in FIG. 3.
The information switching mode, mentioned above, is limited to a specific application. Different applications, (i.e., an application subsystem), must have different communication access subsystems related to different services provided. In order to support a variety of information switching activities, every service provider (service terminal) must have an independent and complete application system, including access systems and application systems. This is because whether a service provider or a user, the terminal must independently deal with communications media, communications protocol, etc., which relate to information switching must set up processing systems to process such as information switching media, protocols and other issues.
At present, in information switching application areas such as e-Business, there are a variety of access manners, such as Internet, telephone, facsimile, handset, cable TV, etc. Therefore, a service provider needs to provide different access manners for different users. Consequently, the net connection between user terminals and service terminals is very complicated as shown in FIG. 4(a). This is an obstacle for the growth and spreading of information switching applications, such as e-Business.
In the three-tier mode of information switching, mentioned above, the user terminal is limited to a computer terminal. This greatly limits an information switching application's ability to spread. It should be reasonable to have a synthesized serving platform to integrate different user terminals and different service terminals. Therefore, the present invention proposes a five-tier architecture mode instead of the three-tier mode by adding a Device Access Gateway, an Information Switch and a Service Gateway, as shown in FIG. 5. With the proposed mode, a service provider does not need to set up a processing system for dealing with different communication devices and protocols, it is only necessary to have one leased line and one communications protocol to access user service requests, sent by different communications equipment and protocols, to the Platform of Information Switch. At the same time, a user with convenient terminal equipment he (or she) has, such as a telephone, a facsimile, a computer, etc., can get service provided by service providers connecting with the Platform of Information Switch.